How many free rune pages do you start with?

I know that you can buy more rune pages in the store for 6300IP each. I have a friend who was awarded Rammus and Corki for free, probably due to some glitch that thought he was signed up for his account longer than he actually was. I know that they were awarded to players early on in the life of the game.

That same friend also has 3 rune pages, whereas I only have 2 available. Is there a button I'm missing that will give me an extra free rune page? Was he also mysteriously awarded a third rune page by some glitch?

Two rune pages is hardly enough to set up any kind of reasonable array, but I don't play nearly enough to warrant saving up 6300IP just to have the privilege of spending tens of thousands of IP on new runes for a jungler. How do other people have 3 rune pages for free whereas I'm stuck with only 2?

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3 Answers

[Y]ou will be able to purchase up to seven additional runes pages for a grand total of nine.

— Additional Rune Pages Available for Purchase!

9 - 7 = 2 for new accounts

QED

It seems like Riot has used the promise of a free rune page to motivate their players to go vote or participate in this or that. Presumably everyone who had an account prior to then would have a bonus one for free.

According to this Rune Page Guide you will have 2 rune pages. Some older accounts will have 3 rune pages because League of Legends won a contest and rewarded all its users that had voted.

You can have up to 20 rune pages. It used to cap out at 10, but they increased the limit several patches ago.